A diversion…

I spent yesterday watching the World Endurance Car Championships at Silverstone. I a fan of this kind of sports car racing and yesterday’s event was very significant as it signalled a return to the top flight of this form of car racing by Porsche in the form of a prototype racing car (the top class).

My wife and I spend a very enjoyable day at what turned out to be a very empty Silverstone race track. Most years we try to get to the Le Mans 24 hour race in France, which is the premier sports car racing event. The contrast between Le Mans and Silverstone could not have been more stark. Le Mans is always mobbed. Silverstone was empty. The weather at Le Mans can be warm and sunny. Silverstone was cold and wet.

I took my digital Leica with an old 1940 50mm Summitar lens with me. (I long ago gave up notions of being a sports photographer with long lenses and heavy kit!). I decided to try to capture the emptiness and cold of Silverstone as a small project for the day and as a means of testing out this new (to me) lens. I liked the results from using the lens. It is sharp but not overly so. It is relatively low contrast. And it has a very interesting bokeh, which I think you either love or hate (I like it). Here are some image from the day….

I had Press accreditation for 10 years or so back in the 1980’s and my back testifies to this with the huge load of long glass I carried around, so you haven’t missed out Keith. I love the old glass on M mount bodies myself. The lack of modern day contrast is so soft but the images are still sharp. It makes for a nice base to add contrast locally and offers something that is often difficult to describe, especially outside the Leica fraternity. A friend of mine who also did press work emailed me yesterday about the lack of people at Silverstone, maybe something to do with prepayment only for tickets, which I didn’t understand.

My office was in Towcester which meant that every F1 event entailed grid-lock for nearly four days around the event – I usually left the country as an easy opt out – I was never a petrol-head! So for me these empty images invoke a sense of longing on my part 🙂 I recognise the greyness of that part of the country – I’m still relatively close – but I can see that you’ve enjoyed making these images, which is something that has returned to me recently.